


pride & joy.

by orphan_account



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Angst, Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Hate, Hurt, Love, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 20:45:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18763897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: When the helicopter crashed and everyone scattered across Hope County, Rook finds herself caught and captured by none other than one large gingerbread mountain man - Jacob Seed.All things considered... It could be worse.





	pride & joy.

She can’t be the person Joseph‘s been talking about. She doesn’t look older than twenty-five. There’s no way she’d decimated his hunters - his Chosen - so easily. “Get your fuckin' paws off me, codger!” She snarls, writhing viciously in his grip. 

•

Out of the four siblings, Rook’s sorted with Jacob. 

Which she’s unsurprisingly comfortable with. 

His conditioning isn’t as unnerving as Joseph’s rambling sermons or as trippy as Faith’s psychedelics or as disconcerting as John’s obsession with confessions, tattoos and atonement. 

Jacob is familiar. 

Killing is what she’d been born, bred, molded to do. Nearly twenty-five years of her life had been devoted to that and that alone. Sure, Rook had tried to eradicate her homicidal tendencies by joining the sheriff’s department, blending into society, becoming a model citizen. 

But... Having a weapon thrust into your hand and being told to put down anything and everything in her path? 

Well, it’s the closest thing Rook’s had to familiarity in a long time. 

• 

Jacob likes Rook because she takes anything - everything - he throws at her in-stride. Except for eating raw meat. 

“Do you want parasites? Because that’s how you get parasites,” Rook grouses at the bowl of ‘meat’ that Pratt had slipped through the bars of her cage. 

“Yeah, no - don’t get me wrong. I love this whole ‘Darwinism’ thing, I’m all for it, actually — but if uncooked meat is the only dish on the menu, your “Chosen” are more likely to keel over and die from the tapeworms lodged in their intestines before they get a chance to slaughter each other in your little trials.” 

This is enunciated with the sharp jab of a stick she’d whittled down to a dangerous point, stabbing a chunk of meat and scowling at the raw texture.

Jacob scoffs. 

“You’re not exactly in a position to be bargaining for food, sweetheart. Eat or starve.” 

• 

“Give a man a fire, he’ll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire, he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.” 

Rook says this as if it’s an ancient Chinese proverb, quiet and thoughtful, to the rest of the prisoners, who are cowering in their respective corners as she roasts her meat over the corpse of one of Jacob’s Chosen who had been a bit too handsy. 

“Let’s gather ‘round the campfire and sing our campfire song...” 

Rook asks anyone if they want their mystery meat flambé’d. 

• 

Jacob couldn’t have been prepared for what comes with the music box. 

A monster, a beast, a demon is unleashed as the first notes of the song play. 

Rook eliminates the targets easily - too easily - makes him wonder what exactly her profession was before this, because there‘s absolutely no chance in hell a small-town deputy could kill this efficiently, this seamlessly, this wondrously. But then, when her first trial is over, when the song is over and the corpses have piled up, she doesn’t stop. 

No - Rook rips through his compound like a typhoon, decimating anything - everything - in her path. 

She’d stopped using her rifle and pistol back in the room, stole a knife off of one of his men’s - his Chosen’s - bodies and rampaged. 

In the trial itself, she‘d killed the twenty-four targets she been put up against effortlessly, in under three minutes. 

When Rook bursts out of the room, she takes down twenty-two of his men around the compound before Jacob himself is able to reach her. 

Even then, it takes him and four of his strongest men to wrangle her down. Rook doesn’t go without a fight, severing one’s femoral artery with the knife and ripping out one’s jugular with her teeth, killing two more people - two of his strongest soldiers - before Jacob cracks the butt of his rifle against the back of her skull, knocking her out cold. 

Within the timespan of fifteen minutes, she’s killed forty-eight people. 

The two men who remained, who just narrowly evaded death because they were mere inches away from their companions, are horrified by the unconscious beast at their feet. 

Jacob hasn’t felt this before, so he can’t be absolutely certain, but he thinks he’s in love. 

• 

The song doesn’t affect her. No, the reason why Rook killed in the trial was because she was being threatened, the rest of them too far gone, lost to the conditioning and brainwashing. Once the threats had been subdued, that’s when her switch was truly flipped. Twenty-four of Jacob’s men for twenty-four of Hope County’s citizens. An eye for an eye. 

• 

“You managed to escape for a little bit... but whenever I want, I can have you back here with me. But you’ve got time to play your little games. I’ll let you know when it’s time to come home. Only you...” 

“Quit singing me love songs over the radio, dork.”

• 

“You have good taste in music, I’ll give you that much,” her voice crackles over the radio a few days later, after she escaped her cage, after Eli and his little toy soldiers found and ‘rescued’ her, after her trail’s gone cold and the only reminder Jacob has that she‘d ever been here is the faint stench of burnt bodies you roasted so you wouldn’t get intestinal parasites. 

“Your little Darwinistic slideshow was adorable, boss. But I was bred differently. I was exposed to something similar to your classical conditioning as a kid, so you could say that I‘ve developed a tolerance.” 

• 

Rook doesn’t panic in her cage - or at the fact that she’s in a cage - but is out cold, with her legs crossed at the ankle, arms cushioning the back of her head, dozing fitfully. 

Is— is she taking a nap?! 

When Jacob rattles her cage, Rook barely stirs. When he does it again, a cinch in his jaw and annoyance as he shakes the bars viciously, a groan escapes her — not pained, scared or angry. This was a groan of exasperation, as if he’d just shattered a vase and she’d have to clean up after his mess. 

“Five more minutes...” 

• 

The scarce few people that Jacob had told about Miller digested the information in a gratingly similar fashion. Surprise, pity, horror, disgust, fear. Rook doesn’t give him any of that. The only thing he receives is a thoughtful stare - like she isn’t looking at him but through him - and a heavy sigh of resignation. He doesn’t find out why until much later. 

• 

The air before a storm - a devastating downpour, a deafening thunderstorm, a merciless lightning strike. The smoke after a devastating explosion - a fatal gunshot, a catastrophic bomb, a fire of chaos. The crackle of electricity. He doesn't think he'll ever get enough. Rook is a drug and he is addicted. 

•

Deadly as a wolf, quiet as a mouse, coy as a fox. 

Jacob really needs to brainstorm new ideas for cages that she can’t lock-pick or break out of. 

By the time his men return, heads down and weapons bolstered, they don’t need to say a word for him to know the mission was unsuccessful. 

That, and the lack of a particular caustic, snarky, crass deputy with them. 

“You’ve forgotten your purpose, Deputy. You were on the path of the Chosen, but now you’ve strayed. Fear did this to you, but don’t worry. It’s not too late. Come back to me. Remember your purpose.” 

Silence. 

Drones on for seconds that bleed into minutes, have his fingers twitching for the music box in his pocket.

Until her voice - husky and low - spills through the speakers, has him licking his lips at the thought of that voice whispering in his ear under very different circumstances. 

“Can’t remember something you’ve never had, boss.”

•

Though Jacob’s never seen this side of Rook, that doesn’t mean it never existed in the first place. 

No, a ferocity like this is something that’d been dormant for far too long. Being stoked like this would only bring about an inferno of irreparable destruction. 

His lungs crave the taste of that cataclysmic smoke.

•

The blank look in her eyes is as revealing as it is terrifying. There isn’t an ounce of reason in her actions. The only thing driving Rook is pure, unadulterated bloodlust. He salivates at the prospect, the carnage, the destruction she wreaks as she takes down his men without breaking a sweat.

•

Jacob asks her why she’d been honorably discharged. 

With a solemnity he didn't know she was capable of, Rook tells him that war hasn’t changed. That there wasn't any glory in it - that was just something the old and arrogant told the young and stupid to condone the violence and bloodshed of millions. 

That slaughtering villages under the pretense of hostility and ruthless superiors had put a strain on her conscience - or whatever was left of it. 

That any humanity she had died the moment she was ordered to put a bullet between a child's eyes. 

That her will to live was extinguished when she walked into her compound and found her best friend, her brother-in-arms, the person that had kept her sane for so long soaking in a pool of his own blood, a revolver in his hand and a hole in his head. 

That is when the beast was unleashed, taking the form of pure, unadulterated rage. 

• 

She was relieved of duty, celebrated as some fucking hero, when she’d been kidnapped and tortured for two years. 

She’d been discharged as soon as she’d received excruciating medical attention because she’d sustained head wounds so severe that they left her blind in her right eye. 

That her ribs had been broken so viciously that the doctors had to re-break them so they could heal properly. 

That they’d doused her in ice baths and water-boarded her for every day she didn’t talk. That they’d shattered her femur, kneecap and ankle so intensely that the doctors had to put metal rods in her legs to hold what little was left of the bones together, said there was a high chance she’d walk with a limp for the rest of her life. 

• 

The Judges love her. 

Lunging at her like they do when they tear out people’s jugulars, but instead, they shower Rook’s face with kisses. 

Jacob’s heart swells. 

“They’re goin’ soft on me,” he grouses, making her laugh. 

“You kidding? They’re just getting a taste of me. These boys’ll be ripping my throat out by the end of the week.” 

• 

Rook is cocky, infuriating and crude. He doesn't understand how she evokes such conflicting feelings within him. 

There have been a number of times that Jacob has forcibly grabbed her - most times had been in the heat of passion, and Rook will urge him farther with a low, dulcet, “These bones aren’t made of glass, baby.” 

He fucking loves that she can handle what he dishes out. Nothing too violent - he’d rather chop off his arms than intentionally hurt her - but when her skin is littered with bite marks, painted with finger-shaped bruises, flushed red from particular attention... Rook simply smirks that incorrigible twitch of the lips and hums, “You sure know how to show a girl a good time.” 

•

Rook doesn’t need the music box to “encourage” her to cull the herd. Especially because it doesn’t actually trigger a fugue, homicidal state - it makes her crash out. Like a lullaby. But Jacob hums ‘Only You’ when they’re together, when he takes Rook in his arms and indulges in her. 

• 

He likes the simple things in life. 

He likes the sharp jut of her hipbones against her taut skin. 

He likes the hollows of said bones, where he can dig his thumbs in and keep her in place. 

He likes the taste of her moans in the back of his throat. He likes the graceful slope of her neck, which he’ll lick and bite until the column of flesh is marred with various shades of red and purple. 

He likes her scent - earthy, spicy, savory. He likes how her body writhes beneath his, struggling for touch, arching desperately for him. 

He likes the way her two wrists fit so perfectly in one single broad hand. 

He likes the searing fire that burns in her eyes when he’s taken something a step too far. He likes her. 

And, apart from his brothers, that’s more than can be said for anyone in his life. 

•

He cares about her. 

He c a r e s about her. 

Which is a fucking disaster. 

Because that’s just a fucking casualty waiting to happen. 

Funnily enough, he doesn't become more overprotective of her. 

No, as a matter of fact, he sends her on rigorous tasks and dangerous objectives and cutthroat trials that had the rest of his soldiers cowering in their fucking boots. 

Rook does them without so much as a grimace. 

Most times, she comes back relatively unscathed, save for the exhaustion lingering beneath her eyes and the despondency from whatever grueling task she’s completed. 

This baffles him. 

He’s heard the saying that if you lov— cared about something, you'd set it free. And if it came back to you, it'd always been and always will be yours. 

Well - he'd sent her to her death dozens of times and she comes back every single time. That has to mean something. 

•

She is his perfect soldier. 

Though the circumstances of her training and expertise are horrendous, the final product is something that Jacob couldn’t have conceived in his wildest dreams. 

Without the music box, the assistance of Only You, she’s already plenty lethal, decimating any and every search party that he’d sent after her. 

The only reason Rook ends-up in his cage is because she’d wanted to be caught, had heard about Peaches becoming his latest recruit, planned on breaking him out, meeting up with her pathetic friends to bolster their little resistance. 

But it doesn’t work out that way. For one, she excels at the trials. 

Killing with an efficacy that surprises him, floors him, because there wasn’t a chance that a simple, humble deputy could take lives so easily, even through the haze of the brainwashing.

•

Pratt tries to break her out. 

But, in a twisted turn of events, Rook switches their roles, shoves him out the window, watches him ride off into the distance. 

This isn’t met without any repercussions. Jacob starves her for days, throws her into rigorous trials that could whittle the strongest into nothing more than flesh and bone, but Rook pulls through - like she always does, has yet to disappoint him, a beast within him growling pleasantly at the sight of her tearing through weaklings with unbelievable strength. 

• 

“Was freeing that weakling really worth the punishment, pup?” 

The smile Rook gives him is crooked, just a touch of manic, but absolutely mesmerizing. 

“You call this a punishment, chief?” 

• 

One of his men tries to betray him - a fucking mutiny that’d been planned for weeks, with a small gaggle of soldiers in-tow, nothing short of a knife in the back like Julius-fucking-Caesar. 

Only, they don’t get the chance. Rook shoves Jacob out of the way, takes the blade meant for his spine in her stomach, simultaneously shoving her switchblade into the traitor’s throat, severing his jugular effortlessly. 

“Medic! Get the fucking medic!” Jacob roars, hands staunching the blood gushing out of her stomach, though she insists, breathless and gutted, ‘Just a flesh wound, boss.’ 

• 

“Jake...” Rook chokes out, clutching his shirt with a desperation that makes him ache. “Stay with me, baby girl.” 

• 

“Stay in bed.” 

“I’m not an invalid,” she gripes, fingers curling in the blankets, ready to throw them off, hurl them out the fucking window, as if she‘s a prisoner and they‘re her shackles. But Jacob is faster than she anticipated. Especially since she lost a solid two liters of blood yesterday. 

“I will cuff you to the bedpost,” Jacob warns darkly, his fingers linked around Rook’s wrists, a tight pressure that’s only a fraction of his strength. 

Despite the threat, a coy smile steals the seams of her mouth, a mischievous gleam dancing in her eyes. 

“Kinky.” 

• 

“You could’ve let him kill me.” 

“But you’re so much more fun when you’re alive.” 

• 

“C'mere,” he grunts from the headboard of his bed, waving an arm in her direction. Rook had broken out of the med-bay fifteen times in the course of three days, resulting in Jacob - delicately - hoisting her in his arms, taking her to his room, splaying her across his sheets and kissing her firmly, harshly - blue eyes blazing with intent, a smile threatening to curve his mouth at the way she’d licked her lips after, how she’d chased after his mouth like a parched man would a fountain. 

Rook doesn’t budge, not an inch, looks confused - skeptical - from the suggestion. 

He sighs, but it's his fault that she’s responding as such, like a rabbit caught in headlights - because he isn’t an affectionate person, not by any stretch of the imagination. 

Fingers curving around her waist, he all but hauls Rook into his arms, biting back a laugh at the startled yelp that escapes her. 

“Uh...” she begins eloquently. 

He hums. 

“Are you dying?” 

“What would give you that idea?” 

“This... cuddling.” 

It's hardly that much. 

He has his arm draped around her waist, holding her against him, mindful of the stitches marring her stomach. 

“You think this is cuddling?” 

“Well, actually - I think you might be trying to strangle me. Jugular's up here, geezer.” 

“Is that right?” He asks, head thunking back against the headboard, eyes closing in what-he’d-never-admit was content. 

“Yeah... But at your age, I guess deteriorating eyesight is the least of your troubles.” 

He flicks the back of her head, and her laughter is the sweetest thing he’s heard in a long time. 

• 

Jacob trusts Rook more than he’s trusted anyone in years, as much as he trusts his brothers. 

She becomes his right hand - his second-in-command - helping him with the workload at the veteran’s center while, simultaneously, culling the herd, rooting out the weak links and breaking-in the stronger soldiers. 

(Rook also feeds and trains the Judges - completely of her own volition because she adores those murderous, fluffy snowballs - unflinching at their appearance and initially hostile demeanor, has been found on more than one occasion giving them belly rubs, scratches behind their ears and a gratuitous amount of snacks.) 

• 

Rook collapses in an inelegant heap of limbs and muscle, Only You ringing disturbingly close and clear, as if it wasn’t playing through her radio, but the music box (and its owner) was right behind her. 

•

When she comes to, with a pounding headache and a dry throat, she’s in a room she doesn’t recognize. 

A bedroom. 

Neat, clean, barren. 

Eerily similar to the quarters she’d been raised in as a child, back in that hell of a governmental military facility, bringing back memories that are anything but pleasant. 

That was over ten years ago. 

That place was razed to the ground five years ago. Rook knows this because she’s the one that did it, along with the help of a handful of her ‘comrades’. With these deductions in mind, the last five years come flooding back, particularly the last six months spent in Hope County, Montana. St. Francis. 

This has to be the veteran’s center. 

But... 

Where’s the cage? 

Where are the prisoners? 

Where’s the trial room? 

“Morning, pup,” a voice drawls. 

“Where... Where am I?” 

“You’re in my room, honey. Where nobody can take you from me.” 

“... What?” 

Rook tries to stand, but she doesn’t make it more than a few steps before she’s wobbling, legs trembling like the aftershocks of an earthquake. Jacob‘s there before she crumbles to the floor. 

“Such a stubborn little thing,” he chuckles in her ear, shivers rippling through her spine. 

He lifts her into his arms like she weighs less than nothing, but cradles her like she’s worth more than anything, carrying her back to bed. 

“Jacob, what the fuck is going on?” Rook whines, though she’d deny it ‘til her dying breath. To her surprise, Jacob stays in bed with her, brushes a few stray locks out of her face. 

“You’ve been fraternizing with the enemy, pup.” 

“Fraternizing? What the fuck are you talking—“ 

“Language, doll. I’ll put you over my knee if I have to.” 

A low moan escapes her throat, unbidden and needy. 

Rook isn’t sure who’s more surprised by the sound, but judging by the grin that stretches across Jacob’s scarred face, it’s suffice to say he definitely enjoyed it more than she did. 

“Would you like that, baby girl? Have me put you in your place? Teach you a lesson for thinking that anyone else deserves you?” 

“Jacob, I don’t understand—“ 

“You are mine, pup. Plain and simple. And if anyone tries to come between us, there will be hell to pay.” 

• 

Jacob likes her. 

In a way that they hadn’t, in that he’d praise Rook for slaughtering the weak because she’s strong - not because it was expected of her, not because it‘s all she’s good for, not because it was the only reason she’d been born. 

Rook isn’t naive enough to think that Jacob sees her as anything more than a weapon, than a tool, than meat that could devour or be devoured. 

But the praise that cascades from his lips with every kill gives her a lick of satisfaction, a pleasant hum in the back of her skull that tells her that she can’t be a machine — machines don’t feel, machines don’t take pride in their actions, they don’t savor the attention that their creators give them. 

• 

But good things never last.

As Rook approaches the end of the final trial, salivating at the prospect of the best of the lot in the final room, Darwinism at its finest. 

The door splinters beneath her boot and she takes aim at the first - only - human being in the room. 

Eli Palmer. 

Who has tears in his sunken eyes, blood caked in his tattered clothes, his bow clutched tightly in white, trembling fingers, the arrow staring Rook right in the face. 

And the world comes to a stop. 

Eli doesn’t make a move, but Rook can see that miniscue glint of lucidity, recognition, in his eyes. 

Jacob hadn’t drugged him. 

He wasn’t under the influence of the psychological torture, of the perpetual mindfuck, of the fucking song. 

He was lucid. 

And Eli wasn’t making any moves to hurt her, to defend himself, to fight. He was going to let himself be killed. And so, Rook does the only thing that she can do, what she should’ve done a long time ago. 

Rook raises the gun to her temple. 

‘What are you doing? Stop! Put the fucking gun down!’ 

And pulls the trigger. 

Darkness consumes her before pain can. 

• 

Antiseptic and fresh linen fight for dominance in Rook’s nose. 

The fight is forgotten instantaneously when pain registers in her skull, so fierce and searing that she isn’t sure how it hadn’t been noticed in the first place, right around her frontal lobe. 

There’s the rustle of fabric, clothes, somewhere nearby, the grating tones of chatter as well, and though every nerve in Rook’s body flares into the defensive, to get out quickly, efficiently, lethally, she can’t think straight with the relentless pounding in her head - not any thoughts that could have action behind them. 

More than that, she can’t see a goddamn thing and that alone is enough to send her into a panic. But then there are hands touching her, brushing against her cheek. 

Reflexes takes over, her fingers snatching their wrist in a crushing grip, threatening to crush the bone. 

A voice - dark, warm, familiar - echoes somewhere in the room, close but distant, decipherable but mangled, reassuring but strained.

“You’re safe, Rook. You’re safe.” 

She doesn’t believe this voice - not for a second. It’s familiar, sickeningly so, as thick as syrup and as sweet as honey. 

Rook’s first instinct is to sink her teeth into the vocal cords of whatever - whoever - is making such disgusting, patronizing sounds. 

But something takes hold of her, synthetic and gaseous and medicinal, lulling her into a false sense of security (or complacency). 

Within seconds, her fingers slip from the offender’s skin, but her hand doesn’t fall limply to your side, not when their hands catch it before it could do so, cradling it like something delicate, kisses it like a reverence. 

• 

Dr. Perkins says it’s a miracle that there isn’t any brain damage. 

The only reason Rook isn’t dead is because Eli lunged right before she’d pulled the trigger, knocking the trajectory off, hitting part of the optic nerve, entering and exiting your skull in a clean shot. 

And Rook— Rook laughs, sharp and bitter.

Can’t she get a fucking break? 

• 

Finding out that she’d spared Eli is like a knife to the back. 

Hearing her barter for his life is like she’s twisting the handle. 

“Why should this weakling live?” 

“Because if you kill him, you’ll be killing both of us.” 

And that‘s what did it. 

That’s when Jacob realized he could never deny Rook anything. 

Because he can’t lose her. 

“Of everything you’ve been taught, Jacob… Of all the battles you’ve fought, soldiers you’ve recruited, lessons you’ve learned… You can’t even see that he isn’t the embodiment of what you loathe, but the epitome of what you stand for. He’s dedicated his life to protecting his men, his militia, his region.” 

“Is that what he told you? How can you trust the word of someone who was weak enough to get caught in the first place?” 

“Because he’s stronger than I could ever aspire to be.” 

• 

By the time Rook gets back to St. Francis, Jacob’s retired to his room. The last thing he needed was for anyone to overhear them. But his anger hasn’t subsided. 

Every minute that Rook wasn’t here, that she spent with that fucking militia, his ire festered like an open wound. 

When there’s a firm, deliberate knock on his door, he manages an impressively level, “Come.” 

The door is just closing when Jacob shoves Room up against it. 

“How could you?” 

“Boss, I—“ 

“How could you let that bastard manipulate you? How could you let him get inside your head? How could you betray me?!” 

He hadn’t meant to say that. He’d meant to say the project. But tensions were running too high, too hot, for him to reel back his words. 

“Jacob, I... I couldn’t. I can’t. Eli is more than a soldier. He’s a friend. Above that, he’s a good man. He doesn’t deserve to die.” 

“You were willing to die for him.” 

“I was.” 

“Do you love him?” 

“... What?” 

“You heard me, Deputy.” 

“You can’t be serious.” 

“Do. You. Love. Him.” 

“... Yes. I do. Platonically. I trust him with my life.” 

“You would’ve died for him?” 

“Friends make sacrifices.” 

“Not self-sacrifices!” 

• 

“Would you have killed me?” 

“No. I wouldn’t have. More than that, Jacob - I don’t think I could if I wanted to. Because there was a moment where I was sure you were going to put a bullet in my skull. And I wouldn’t have done anything to stop you.” 

This is when Jacob realizes that they are each other’s weaknesses. 

That the best thing - the smartest thing - to do was separate at once. 

But he doesn’t. 

Instead, he kisses her with every raw emotion churning in his body. 

• 

One day, Jacob flips Rook over onto her back. 

This is one of the few instances he’s able to catch her by surprise - his preference so far was from behind, hers being against the wall - but Rook acclimates quickly, legs wrapping around his waist, nails raking down his back, eliciting a low growl from deep within his chest. 

When Rook reaches your peak - with him right above her - spilling over the edge, Jacob nearly slumps against her, the only thing saving her from being crushed beneath his weight being his hands braced beside either side of her head. 

Fingers, dainty and calloused, come up to his forearms. 

Jacob tenses, had forgotten all about the scars and rashes littering his arms, is about to pull away. 

But before he gets a chance, those fingers are caressing his marred flesh, with a delicate touch that bordered reverence, and soft lips follow them, kissing the scar tissue like it was something to be worshipped. 

This takes the breath out of his lungs, like a sledgehammer to the chest. 

The only reason Rook stops is because he moves, his right hand to cradle the back of her head and his left hand to the small of her back, rolling over and bringing her with him. 

Rook’s head rests against his shoulder, his fingers tangled loosely in her hair. 

She doesn’t mind one bit, arms weaving around his back, lips tracing the jagged edges of a burst of shrapnel against his pectoral. 

• 

He used to have night terrors frequently, at least three or four times a week. 

He’d often put off sleeping, stay up for days on-end, only falling into bed when exhaustion threatened to render him weak, pathetic, useless. 

But when Rook’s in his bed, in his arms, he’s at peace. 

Rarely, very rarely, does he have a night terror with his baby girl in his arms. 

But if he does, he’s brought out of the gore and violence and screams by a soothing voice, a calming hum, a lulling cadence that slows his heart, rouses him without him lashing out. 

When he wakes, or when the terrors fade, Rook chances her fingers through his hair, nails grazing his scalp, in such a way that he has to refrain from butting up into her hand for more. 

Rook will tell him stories about before, about traveling through the U.S. after being honorably discharged, with nothing but a motorcycle and a rucksack. 

The road trip of a lifetime. 

Sometimes, she sings. 

Old stuff, classics - Billie Holiday, Ink Spots, Ella Fitzgerald - that remind him of better days, the scarce few there’d been, when he and his brothers could find a pocket of solace, peace, content in their hellish upbringing. 

Needless to say, Jacob is loathe to sleep (and has never felt so content) without Rook in his arms. 

• 

What he didn’t know, but had been wondering for weeks, was that Rook suffers from them too. Rare as they were... Rook did, too. 

They didn’t rouse him. He was a heavy sleeper. But after the third time in nine weeks, when he’d woken up and Rook’s side of the bed cold and empty, he’d started putting the pieces together. 

He’d storm out of his (their) room, rifle tethered to his back, knife strapped to his thigh, pistol brandished in one scarred hand, ready to lead the search party for his deputy. 

But he’d stop dead in his tracks when he set foot outside, where she’s already taking stock of rations, detailing shipments, needling the latest subjects into their cages. 

“Morning, boss,” Rook says, saluting dutifully. 

As if she hadn’t nearly caused an uproar. He makes a mental note to ask her about it later, because more often than not, he’s the one that’d have to pull her out of bed, into the shower to cleanse themselves of the previous night’s activities. 

Though there truly isn’t a more mouthwatering sight than the deputy - his deputy - wearing nothing but his jacket, cheeks flushed, with his cum leaking down her thighs. 

The fourth time, he stirs when she leaves. 

He doesn’t waste a single second in following her, the curiosity suffocating him as to where she wandered to, what she did, why her mind was tormenting her. 

• 

The mountains aren’t any less beautiful when he’s actually trekking through them - more so, actually - as opposed to being holed-up at St. Francis for days, weeks, months on-end. 

Rook can be vexing at the best of times, but for the last three weeks, where he hasn’t heard so much as a whisper about her from any of his soldiers or any of her companions, vexation gives way to anxiety in the blink of an eye. 

There’s a sniper rifle across his back, an assault rifle slung over his shoulder and his faithful combat knife strapped to his thigh. 

A .44 is clamped treacherously in his fingers, not just waiting for more scourge of this desolate waste, but eagerly anticipating them. 

Given her anachronistic nature, he supposes that his surprise at finding her lounging above the roof of a dilapidated drive-in theater house is ridiculous. 

Doesn’t really matter, seeing as how it melts into relief - seeing her healthy, unscathed, very much alive - and then bleeds into ire. 

She isn’t an ounce of startled when he treads up the stairs, boots heavy against the rusted metal, which wheezes strenuously under the weight. 

But seeing her close-up makes him pause in his tracks. 

She is ethereal, a gorgeous apparition bathed in pale moonlight, too pure in this tarnished ruin sitting with her legs crossed, leaning against a sign that’s so faded that the letters are indecipherable, practically nonexistent, boxes of Pop Tarts scattered around her (explains the shattered window at the convenience store down the street), a single box balanced neatly in her lap, munching out of a torn aluminum packet, her eyes glued to the screen. 

There’s something so innocent, serene, domestic about this picture that it makes his chest lurch. 

He doesn’t want to break this moment, reluctant to find that this specter was too good to be true, that his fingers would phase through this illusion and shatter it entirely. 

Anger loses its acerbic edge, fear seeps out of his muscles, dread fades into a distant memory… 

He sits beside her, and she nudges the box of confectionary cyanide in his direction. 

A peace offering. 

Why did you leave? 

Why do you worry me like this? 

Why didn’t you say anything? 

Why do you make me feel this way? 

Why do you make me feel? 

He accepts, takes a generous bite of artificial strawberries and cardboard icing, to stuff down these incessant questions. 

“What are we watching?” 

“Oldboy. A classic. South Korea doesn’t fuck around with their films.” 

She’s like a wild animal. 

His perfect Judge, for lack of a better analogy. 

The truth is, she’s his perfect everything. 

Lethal, unpredictable, independent. 

He knows this - possibly better than anyone else - but he can’t just let her go. 

Part of him likes to think that he could tame her, that she’d stay by his side until their dying days, that she’d find more comfort in his arms than she does in roaming. 

But he isn’t an idiot. 

That isn’t Rook, and it never would be. 

She’s a vagabond who doesn’t belong to anyone or anything, who will pick-up and leave at the drop of a hat for thousands of reasons but, simultaneously, no reason at all. 

That’s why, instead of reprimanding her for scaring him shitless and nearly driving him to insanity, he drapes an arm around her and tucks her into his side. 

Because these might be his last moments with her - in this world, every day isn’t a given - but he’d be damned if he wouldn’t savor each and every one for as long as they lasted. 

• 

Rook buries her face in her hands, willing herself not to cry, but she can’t swallow around the lump in her throat. 

Her eyes sting from the unshed tears, but she refuses to let a drop slip. 

A pair of large, calloused hands gently eases her hands away from her face, but she can't meet his eyes. 

“Rook…” 

She shuts her eyes tightly. 

“Honey, look at me." 

Rook shakes her head, throat pulsing with emotion. 

Thumbs brush against the delicate skin of Rook’s cheekbones, and her eyes flicker open at the touch. 

Bright, clear blue eyes peer deeply, sincerely into hers, and she can't help but realize how grounding his gaze is. 

"You couldn't have done anything, Rook. You can't blame yourself for his death. You can't bottle up your feelings. Because when that bottle breaks, you will too. It's okay to not be okay. It's okay to feel." 

Tears slip through Rook’s cracked mask. 

He brushes them away with the pads of his thumbs. 

Jacob gingerly tangles his fingers in her hair, rests his forehead against hers, ice-blue eyes piercing shining topaz ones. 

"It's okay to cry." 

A cracked sob has Rook’s body shaking, and before she can stop yourself, her arms circle his torso, she buries her face in Jacob’s chest and cries. 

• 

“You are the light to my darkness.” 

“I... Think you’ve been reading too many trashy romance novels, boss.” 

He chuckles. 

“Why don’t I take a page out of your book?” 

Jacob takes Rook’s chin in his hand, doesn’t miss the way her jaw tightens at the touch, but eases the tight muscle with a stroke of his thumb. 

“You are the moon of my life. That is all I know and all I need to know. And if this is a dream, I will kill the man who tries to wake me.” 

“You... You were awake...?” 

He grins, that dangerous thing that evoked horror in the weaker links because it looks eerily similar to a wolf baring its fangs before sinking them into their prey, but it floods Rook with pride because it’s an absolutely beautiful sight to behold. 

Rook laughs in disbelief, punching his shoulder, doesn’t make any effort to writhe out of his hold when he grabs her hand and cradles it to his chest. 

“Told you Game of Thrones was the best.” 

Jacob hums, kissing her worn knuckles. 

Those cerulean orbs - clear as the sky, beautiful as the Mediterranean, bright as diamonds - peer up at her with an emotion Rook’s noticed a handful of times, but has never really been able to accurately diagnose. 

This moment, though... Rook thinks she has a good idea of what it is. 

She cards her fingers through his hair, nails scratching his scalp, eliciting a pleased growl 

“My sun and stars...” Rook murmurs softly, the words ringing loud and true, his face lighting up in such a way that she wants to say the sweet pet name until her throat is scraped raw. 

• 

Jacob doesn’t know what happened. 

One minute, she’s leading a training session with the latest batch of soldiers, demonstrating proper technique and form, enunciating that strength is good, but smarts are best, that guns are effective, but when they’re taken away, what you’re left with is the true amount of your worth. 

The next, she’s crumpling to the floor so fast that he thought she’d been shot. 

The soldiers rush over to her, but he’s sprinting across the compound, shoving past them, taking Rook’s limp form in his arms with an urgency that shakes his core. 

“Rook? Rook!” 

Silence. 

“Pup, if this is a joke… I ain’t laughing...” 

Not so much as a twitch. 

“Rook?! Wake up!” 

Blood begins to leak out of her nose, a slow trickle that courses down her mouth. 

“Get the medics!” 

•  
Encephalitis. 

Inflammation of the brain. 

The headaches. 

The nosebleeds. 

The dissociating. 

• 

Jacob doesn’t leave Rook’s side for hours. He’s cradling her hand in his, feels the pulse in her wrist beneath his thumb, watches the rise and fall of her chest, ears tuned to the beeping of her heart monitor. 

Seeking out every reassurance that she’s alive. 

• 

He isn’t gone more than three hours, but when he gets to her room, the bed is empty and the sheets are cold.

The heart monitor hums the dead, eerie song of a flatline. 

• 

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” 

“Good morning to you too, boss.” 

“Come back inside. Go back to your room. Get in bed.” 

“I fucking hate the med-bay.” 

Jacob growls, snatching the cigarette out of Rook’s mouth, flicking it over the edge of the roof without looking away from her. 

“I fucking hate when you smoke.” 

“Fair enough,” she concedes, exhaling a large puff of smoke through chapped lips, sighing as her lungs are emptied. 

“This isn’t the first time it’s happened, is it?” Jacob asks, voice low, concerned, terrified.

Rook shakes her head. 

“Last one was right before I joined the sheriff’s department. A little over a year ago.” 

“The first?” 

Rook looks up thoughtfully at the sky, like she’s searching for a fond childhood memory as opposed to remembering a debilitating blackout. 

“Hm... Five or six years ago. King was there. Saved me from tumbling off the ledge of a twelve-story building.” 

“The way we were raised... The methods, the experiments, the drugs... We don’t have a long life-span.” 

“And you weren’t going to say anything?” 

“Sort of hoped that when it actually happened, it’d explain itself.” 

He snatches her by the collar of her shirt, forcing her to face him, but Rook isn’t surprised. 

The troubling part is the apathy in her eyes. 

“Everybody dies, Jacob. Survival of the fittest, remember? Or do I have to recite your Social Darwinistic lecture to you?”

Jacob’s jaw tightens to the point that his teeth threaten to splinter and his temples are throbbing.

“... How long?”

“Dunno. Could be fifty years from now. Could be fifty weeks from now. Could be fifty days from now. Fuck, it could be tomorrow.”

Jacob doesn’t know what to say. The words haven’t been stolen from his mouth because he didn’t have any. How could she be so nonchalant about the possibility of dying at any given moment?

“Jacob. Hey. Look at me.”

He doesn’t, staring off to the side with clenched fists and bristling with rage, devastation.

This doesn’t deter Rook, who cradles his scarred, bearded cheeks in her hands, tilts his head down to meet her eyes.

“As long as there’s breath in me, I will not succumb to this bullshit. I’ll fight with every ounce of strength I’ve got. I’ll be with you for as long as you’ll have me.

Jacob doesn’t say anything, simply crushes her to his chest and buries his face in the crook of her neck.

Forever, echoes in the back of his mind.

Judging by the way her arms tighten around his neck, there’s a strong chance he said this out loud.

He doesn’t care.

Right here, right now - he has Rook.

That’s all that matters.

• 

Rook doesn’t treat him like a god. 

She doesn’t cower when she hears his voice, when he plops down in front of her cage to talk about culling and sacrifices, when he fingers the music box out of his jacket pocket. 

That doesn't mean she’s disrespectful or loathsome. 

Rook simply... Treats him like a person. 

Well, how she’d treat any other person. 

He doesn't take as much offense to this as he'd thought. 

No, Rook address him as 'boss', ‘chief’ or ‘alpha’ in front of his soldiers (something primal within him growls appreciatively at the names), and 'Jake' when they’re alone. 

• 

He'd hate her if he could. 

That's what he likes to tell himself, anyway. 

But it's physically impossible. 

Because yes, Rook’s sarcastic and dry and inappropriate at the best of times, but there are those moments - few and far in-between - where he'll find a crack in her nonchalant, caustic facade, that he'll carefully chip at, as if he’s dismantling a bomb, until it splinters, revealing bits and pieces that hadn't been divulged to anyone else, making them that much more precious. 

• 

He loves cradling her in his arms. 

Maybe more than he should, but he can't help it. 

When he holds her, he knows that she’s safe. 

That there isn't a safer place in this world than in his arms, where he could protect her, shield her, treasure her. 

“I can walk just fine, chief.” 

The pink blossoming across her cheeks is a marvel to behold, because she doesn’t fluster easily. 

“Really? Even after you disregarded a direct order, took the brunt of a grenade that was meant for someone else and cracked your head against the pavement?” 

There's an argument simmering underneath her tongue, but just as Rook’s lips part, he cuts her off brusquely. 

“Pup. This ain’t a request.” 

Her mouth shuts, but the flush isn't disappearing anytime soon. 

He thinks that she’ll put up more of a fight - she has this habit of never leaving a conversation without the last word - but Rook stays quiet. 

Within a few minutes, the rigidity in her muscles begins to melt and her head thunks softly against his chest. 

Fighting a smile off his face proves to be quite the challenge. 

• 

He's never felt like this about anyone. He doesn't understand the warmth that floods his chest when she smiles, the delight he takes in her laughter, the heat that pools in his stomach when she’s inches away. 

• 

They've reached an impasse. Jacob doesn't know what he's done to warrant such a thing in the first place. 

... Okay, he does. 

But that doesn't make the situation any less aggravating. 

He tries to contact her, but her phone is off - untraceable - and her frequency’s been silent for days. 

He sends capture parties to find her, but they return a few days later, bruised and bloodied - but not dead, and that in itself is a miracle because Rook could’ve slaughtered them easily - saying that she’d blindsided them and disappeared shortly thereafter. 

Enough was enough. 

It was time for his baby girl to come home. 

•

“I've done terrible things, pup…” 

“Everybody‘s done terrible things. I mean, obviously, there are different magnitudes to those things, but I don't think that really matters. I think what matters is that you've recognized that they're bad and you make a conscious effort not to do them again.” 

How did she do that? 

How did she make the debilitating weight crushing his chest - suffocating his lungs, making every breath more painful than the last - a little less agonizing? 

• 

“You’re tougher than I thought... But killing me won’t change a goddamn thing. You think I give a shit if I die? That’s my purpose. I give my life for Joseph’s... and I do it gladly. I understand my role... I am his sacrifice. Simple as that.” 

“The world isn’t black and white, Jacob. You know that. ‘S a good thing you’ve got me around to give you a refresher.” 

• 

They have their scuffle in the forest, but... Rook doesn’t kill him. 

The whole thing is a fucking mess.

His soldiers - his Chosen - are strewn across the field haphazardly, limbs bent at awkward angles, blood pooling around them, so much green and red that Rook thinks it’s a sociopath’s portrait of Christmas. 

Jacob snags her in the shoulder, belly and thigh with that fucking rifle. 

Tears right through, comes out clean and easy, which is good because Rook isn’t in the right state of mind to go fishing bullets out of her flesh. 

• 

Rook doesn’t say a word throughout the fight. 

Jacob mocks her throughout, reminding her that she’s nothing but a tool, but he stops talking a minute into it. 

Because Rook might have three gunshot wounds, two of which had been haphazardly bandaged with torn sleeves ripped off the corpses of his men, but his perfect soldier knows how to fight. 

His specialty is his rifle, so when Rook sneaks-up behind him, knocking the gun out of his hands, clattering off the edge of the cliff, Jacob knows he has a challenge. 

• 

He fishes the music box out of his jacket, but that’s precisely what she wants. 

He opens it, the song plays, but she just smiles. 

Breaks the fucking thing in-half. 

Tugs something out of her ears. 

Earphones. 

She’s wearing fucking earphones. 

She hasn’t been in a fugue state. 

She’s been awake, lucid, aware. 

• 

He’s slumped against a boulder, beckoning her towards him with a ‘come-hither’ motion that makes Rook want to break his fingers, but she concedes. 

He yanks at the collar of her jacket, with a strength that has her stumbling to meet him, as he prattles on about kingdoms being built, destroyed, ruined with a rumbling wheeze that iterates his lung is threatening to collapse. 

Rook’s heard this speech before - different ways, different places, different people - but for some inconceivable reason, she clings to the words this time around. 

His eyes are so blue. Crystalline. Like staring into the purest sea, depthless and infinite, so captivating that she could drown in them and wouldn’t mind one bit. 

She doesn’t realize she’s said this out loud until his hold slackens on her jacket. 

Then he bursts out laughing — as much as he can with busted ribs and a collapsing lung. 

“Waxing poetics at my deathbed? I’m flattered, pup.” 

Rook doesn’t say anything, flustered at the slip of the tongue, but also unable to shake the nausea simmering in her stomach as he refers to his death so unabashedly, finds herself staring at the dog-tags dangling from his neck. 

“What are you doing? You know what to do. Cull the herd.” 

“You aren’t dying, you rickety old bastard. The only way those wounds’ll kill you is if they’re left to bleed out and if we don’t get that lung checked out. I’ll give you five minutes to catch your breath. Our breath. Then we’re heading out.” 

“That isn’t an option. Either walk away and let nature take its course or finish what you started. This is where it ends.” 

“Fuck you.” 

He snatches her again, fingers boring into the skin of her shoulders, hard enough that they’d bruise. 

“Have you not a heard a single word I’ve been cramming between your ears since you’ve been here?” 

Rook’s mouth shuts then, only because she would’ve snapped her jaws at his throat, frustrated and angry. 

God, this spiel was so fucking boring, monotonous, ridiculous. 

Of course, this gives him ample opportunity to resume his speech, talking about how this was all part of Joseph’s vision, that she did everything he said she would. 

She’s so tired of being a fucking pawn — Rook was such a fitting name, but she thought - hoped - she’d grow out of it someday — that she doesn’t slice his jugular, puncture his aortic artery or plant a bullet in his skull. 

• 

Rook crumbles to her knees - tired, she’s so fucking tired - and falls against him, her head resting against his stomach. 

“... Rook?” 

“I don’t want to do this anymore, Jacob.” 

“... I’ve been a pawn since the day I was born. Just a piece on a battlefield for a chessboard. I thought I broke free from it five years ago, but it looks like my naïveté knows no bounds.” “I didn’t kill Faith. I didn’t kill John. I’m not killing you. I don’t care if you think your purpose is to die for Joseph because it isn’t. Even if you think it is, I won’t let you. You aren’t a weapon without a purpose, Jacob. You’re a human being that’s been chewed up and spit out by society. I know the feeling...” 

“I can’t lose you. As fucked up as this is, you’re the only fucking thing that makes any sense anymore. I thought I’d lost all the fight in me after all these years, but I found it in you. Losing you would be the nail in both our coffins.” 

Jacob doesn’t know what to say. 

Judging by her uncharacteristic silence and despondent stare, Rook’s waiting for reprimand or a lecture or a bullet. 

Possibly all three. 

Instead, Jacob‘s hands come to cradle either side of her face, bloody fingers smearing her pale cheeks, as he lays a kiss to the top of her head. 

“Only you...” 

Rook laughs, the only genuinely happy sound to leave her mouth in a long time, even if the edges of it are manic. 

“I don’t want to lose anyone else, Jake... I’m tired of taking lives... I... I’m so fucking tired.” 

• 

When the dust has settled, when a peace treaty is forged, when Joseph leads his flock into the church to rejoice... 

When John heads out in an exaggerated flourish to begin making amicable trade lines amongst the people... 

When Faith - Rachel - leaves Joseph’s island (will likely never return, given the terror lingering in her eyes, how she trembled behind Rook like a child would behind their parent from the monsters in their closet, arms tethered around her waist when Joseph had taken a step towards her), returns to The Henbane to help out struggling addicts, victims of abuse and people that simply feel lost amongst the chaos... 

Rook doesn’t leave. 

No, when they’re the only ones standing in the courtyard in front of the church, she turns to him, a weary but real smile flicking the corners of her lips, right before she walks up to him and thunks her head against his chest. 

Jacob’s arms coil around her instantaneously, not as much as an atom between them, breathing in the scent of gun powder, sandalwood, wild berries - so deeply that it’s ingrained into his lungs. 

“Let’s go home, pup,” Jacob murmurs in her ear, kissing her temple softly.

Rook’s arms come up to wind around his waist, tightening like she’s terrified that he’d slip through her fingers if she didn’t, buries her face further into his chest, right above his heart. 

“I’m already here.” 

Jacob isn’t a sap by any stretch of the imagination, but hearing these words spill from her lips has him choking on a laugh tangled with something dangerously close to a cry. 

He kisses her forehead, lips lingering against her skin, feels her taut muscles relax under his touch, melting into the heat and comfort of his body, and in that moment, Jacob Seed is overwhelmed by a tidal wave of emotion that he thought he’d never be capable of feeling again. 

Happiness.

His baby girl is home.


End file.
